Down the Rabbit Hole Again
by Yggdrasil'sRoots
Summary: Stiles' brain is a wild creature, and he can't always keep it under control. Sometimes he latches onto a thought and it's down the rabbit hole again.


_**I've not written anything this fast ever. Twenty minutes ago, I was on tumblr, now this exists. Go me. **_

_**There are shameless Alice in Wonderland references in this.**_

_**Of course Stiles is Alice.**_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own teen wolf, just extreme adoration for the actors.**_

It's been this way for as long as he can remember. Maybe it has something to do with his ADHD, or maybe it's a leftover habit picked up from his mother before she died. God knows she was the same.

The fact of the matter is, when Stiles gets an idea, he really just sort of...well to be honest, it's more like the idea gets him, scoops him up in its thirst for knowledge and fulfilment and _solving_.

Before all the werewolf crap it was stuff for school, he'd get an idea and just freeze while his mind sorted out thoughts and coherency returned, and then he would throw himself into something so wholeheartedly he forgot that other things existed.

The paper he wrote for Coach's class on the history of male circumcision is a prime example of that. He hadn't meant to write it like that, or at all, really, considering the essay was on something completely different, but his mind had latched onto something Coach had said and down the rabbit hole he went. And yeah, so he hadn't exactly stuck to the subject matter in the essay, but Econ was boring and there were other things to occupy him and...

You see?

When Scott got bitten, he had followed the little werewolf thought in his head because it stood out, and voila! Or more accurately, when he got Scott bitten, because he doesn't know how to ignore his own brain, has never know how; body in the woods? Sure! Let's go!

Even when he isn't right about something the thought just sticks, spinning around in his head until he gets so mad at himself he takes one of his father's sleeping pills and crashes out for as long as his brain will let him. Usually by the time he wakes up, the thought has gone, and he can focus on other, more important things.

This latest string of murders has Stiles caught, and less interestingly, stuck. He doesn't have a clue at the moment, and like so many of his thoughts, he's stuck until he figures it out. He steals and copies the crime scene photos, sliding the originals back inside the file, wincing as he pictures his dad's face when he finds out, as he is bound to. Even though he's in on all the supernatural happenings in Beacon Hills doesn't mean he likes the fact that his son is caught up in all of it. And he would much rather not have to ask for help from a bunch of teenagers.

And Derek.

Derek is another thing Stiles' mind refuses to relinquish. He's tall, dark, hotter than the sun and sarcastic as fuck, and he's secretly a teddy bear, and Stiles just can't not think about that.

So to distract himself, he sticks his head in a case file, constantly letting his mind tick over on things that aren't a moody, sullen sourwolf, like these murders.

Someone is killing supernatural creatures.

For money.

A lot of money.

One might say an obscene amount of money. Stiles would.

Stiles is in class, Econ, to be specific, looking at the glossy pictures of blood and gore, completely engrossed. He's unconsciously filtering out the noise from the classroom; Coach's voice and the scratch of pens and the rustling of paper; people breathing and feet tapping in time with the barely audible clock on the wall, counting out the seconds until they're free; it's the last period before lunch, people are eager to get out of the small, stuffy class room.

And suddenly there's a lacrosse stick under his nose and a conversation which he barely pays attention to and he does what he does best.

He follows the rabbit with the waistcoat and pocket watch down the hole. Yeah, he's definitely Alice, painfully curious and willing to do anything to fulfil that itch in his head.

Latching onto the lacrosse stick, he pulls it towards him, hard. A section of the stick easily comes free when he tugs determinedly with his other hand, and he tosses it on the desk mindlessly, reaching around with the other hand, scrabbling with it, desperate to find the photo that is clear as a bell in his mind's eye. He pushes aside several graphically disturbing pictures until he finds the ones of the stab wounds in the girl's body. They don't even make his stomach turn, nothing at all, and he briefly finds brain space for hatred, rage, intense, raw loathing for the Nogitsune and the desensitisation regarding gore and blood and ripped up corpses. Then he stares at the sports equipment that Coach is vainly trying to pull away from him. Picture, stick, picture, stick.

The new knowledge weaves itself into an answer in his head, but Coach is right there, saying words that Stiles barely hears and only just manages to reply to. Then at last, he's gone, and Stiles can gather himself back into some semblance of normality.

The hexagonal shape on the outline of the wound on the girl's body had been puzzling his father and his deputies, and Stiles hadn't had a clue when he had been given access, by his dad, to the photos. Only in the station, though, hence the copying and the sneaking.

But having the lacrosse stick waved about in front of him had kicked his brain into rapid, manic thought.

"The killer's on the team." He whispers to Scott lowly.

Scott doesn't even look that surprised, just grim and unhappy, and clenches his jaw.

His brain has quieted down, and he hates that the urge to discover and poke and prod for answers has dissipated over something like this, a mess which teenagers have no right being involved in, but it has anyway, at least until the next time. And with a murderer on the loose?

He doesn't think it'll be long.


End file.
